Soothsayer Serenades I Two-handed by Kübra Uzun

Today we are thrilled to present the first playlist of Amrita Hepi’s Soothsayer Serenades series as part of the Notes for Tomorrow exhibition. The playlist titled Two-handed is presented by Kübra Uzun on Pera Museum’s Spotify account.

The project Soothsayer Serenades is a provocation for moving together while apart, without proof of presence.

Each Wednesday, across 3 weeks, a new playlist and provocation will be released. We are inviting everyone to listen the playlist at 4 pm.

Amrita Hepi is a dancer and choreographer with an interdisciplinary practice. In Soothsayer Seranades, she invites collaborators to develop playlists accompanied by provocations to move which are released via the music streaming service Spotify. This format provides insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated ways of rethinking how art can be experienced and distributed across place and time to transcend geographical and physical boundaries. The pandemic has highlighted how the internet and free social media platforms have provided connectivity during a time when we have been estranged from friends, family, community and workplaces.

The playlists in Soothsayer Seranades encourage listeners to actively participate, to reach out, and enable others to move in the shared moment of its release. The physicality of dance and the sensory qualities of music provide an experience of embodiment that either counters the isolating conditions of lockdown or suggests ways of reconnecting thereafter. The work invites us to experience the present, while also referencing the role of a soothsayer who has clairvoyant abilities to predict the future. If the pandemic has provided a portal to imagine different ways of being and living in the future, Soothsayer Serenades demonstrates an artistic response to how we could re-imagine our shared, global community and reaffirms the importance of our interconnection to each other.

About Kübra Uzun 

Istanbul-based singer, songwriter, performance artist and DJ, Kübra Uzun (IG: @qubra_uzun) is an LGBTQIA+ rights activist, working in Turkey and also on international basis on various platforms. Kübra wrote, sang and produced the song titled ALAN2020 with Mx. Sür and it became an anthem during Istanbul Pride in June 2020. In December 2020, Uzun performed 'A Trans History Sung', a digital monument directed by Onur Karaoğlu, in collaboration with Volksbühne Berlin digital season: Next Waves Theatre. Kübra worked with Simon(e) van Saarloos to create an audio work, Cruising Gezi Park, which is shown in the exhibition titled 'Refresh Amsterdam' at Amsterdam Museum from December 2020 till June 2021. In January 2021, Kübra recorded Koli Kanonu, orginally Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's KV 560, and shoot the video directed by Efe Durmaz - performing all four of the different voices and characters by herself. Kübra Uzun is also the coordinator of Through The Window Project: As an online project aims to gather Turkey-and-Holland based queer artists, thinkers and night workers since June, 2020.